


Built This Ship to Wreck

by deluxemycroft



Series: Ouroboros [18]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Angst, Anorexia, Blood and Injury, Captain America Sam Wilson, Codependency, Deaf Clint Barton, Depression, Derealization, F/M, Loneliness, M/M, Miscommunication, Muteness, Relationship Problems, Retcon Timeline, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Thanos Dies (Marvel), Time Loop, Time Magic, Time Shenanigans, Time Skips, Timeline Shenanigans, Tragedy, Unreliable Narrator, Weird time stuff, deafness, mute character, ruining characters lives, selective mutism, time loop fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25910050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deluxemycroft/pseuds/deluxemycroft
Summary: The aftermath.Or:Clint killed Thanos. Now he must pay the price.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Clint Barton/Laura Barton/Stephen Strange, Clint Barton/Stephen Strange, James "Bucky" Barnes & Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Loki/Steve Rogers
Series: Ouroboros [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1199902
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	Built This Ship to Wreck

**Author's Note:**

> title is a bastardization of lyrics from 'ship to wreck' by florence + the machine
> 
> this takes place directly after 'until the end' ends and during the first couple chapters of 'what happens next'. please read the prior stories in this series before you read this, otherwise it won’t make much sense.
> 
> someone asked me once why i gave clint laura and his family in this series, and the answer is the same now as it's always been: to take it away from him.
> 
> read the warnings, this gets dark.
> 
>  **bold text** is texting or speech-to-text

All went white.

It felt like it went on forever, an eternity with no end, a silent reverberation between his ears as he stared out into the endless white void, and then there was a shockwave of seidr and he blinked, taking relief in the brief darkness, and when he opened his eyes again, Loki was gone. The world was in chaos and his eyes locked on Thanos’s corpse, and then Clint Barton began to scream.

Being alone was the worst thing he could imagine.

He did not even know how to be alone, or if he had ever been alone before. What was it, to be alone? To be without anyone else? To have no one around him? For as long as he could remember, he had always been able to reach out and touch someone. There had always been somewhere there. A family member, a friend, his wife, one of his children...there had always been someone. Even his mind had never been truly his own; Loki had always occupied some part of it, no matter how small.

There wasn’t anyone, not anymore.

He was _alone._

It felt like a weight on his chest, as if he couldn’t breathe. He did not know how to be alone. It felt as if his insides had been scooped and burned and pulled out of him, as if he was a husk of a person, as if he was a cracked eggshell and all the yolk and nasty parts that had been inside of him were gone.

He had to relearn how to breathe. His heart had to figure out how to beat again. His mind had to figure out how to live in solitude again when he was not made for it and every single moment he was alone made him wish he was dead.

Afterwards, after Thanos was dead, after Loki was gone, after he felt the first thump of his heart, after his voice broke from screaming and he could not regain it again, _after after after_ , he knelt in the dirt and sobbed. Nobody came to help him. He crushed his hands into the dirt and he was so alone and it _hurt_ and surely no one had ever hurt this much before and when he tried to reach out, there was only darkness and there was _nothing_. He took in a great, heaving breath and coughed and gagged into the dirt, his body remembering it had once operated as a body, and there was a great pain and twisting in his chest as his heart leapt forward and then settled into an erratic rhythm. His pulse pounded in his ears and his body was suddenly in so much pain that he shrieked. His wrists felt like there were knives stuck in between the bones, his hands were half tingling and half numb, and his back ached and his shoulders hurt and he suddenly had a headache and—

He was hollow on the inside. He choked on the bile that suddenly rose up in his throat and vomited, gagging up sour spittle, squeezing his eyes shut as he curled in on himself and sobbed. It felt like someone had punched him in the chest and the stomach and everywhere else.

Someone touched his shoulder and he screamed, thrashing in the dirt as he scrambled away from them. It had always felt like needles pressing into his skin whenever someone other than Loki touched him and that hadn’t changed, and once he caught his breath, he took in a deep, heaving breath and looked up.

King Balder towered over him and Clint huddled in a pathetic ball at his feet. Balder’s mouth moved but Clint couldn’t hear anything; he pulled out his hearing aids and saw that they were completely fried, and he threw them into the dirt and let out another sob. He cowered away from Balder and looked desperately around for Loki, who had _left him_ and oh God he was so alone and he was not meant to be alone and it felt like there were hooks in his skin pulling him apart—

Balder scooped Clint up in his arms and carried him the long way to the house. Clint tried to get out of his grasp but Balder merely held him close, voice rumbling in his chest as he talked to the stranger on Clint’s front porch. Clint tried to scramble out of his arms when Balder was distracted, but he was stopped by Steve suddenly appearing in front of him. Balder and Steve exchanged a few words and Steve reached out for him, gently taking him from Balder’s arms.

Clint reached out for him mentally but there was _nothing_. It felt like his mind had been boarded up and closed over and he crumpled against Steve’s chest, Steve wrapping his arms around his waist. He could feel vibrations in Steve’s chest but couldn’t fucking _hear anything—_

Something was wrong, they were moving away from the house, moving away from his kids, and Clint suddenly fought against Steve’s arms, thinking only of his kids and his wife. He had to make sure they were safe, that they had survived, that some agent of Thanos’s hadn’t snuck into the house and taken them or hurt them, but then Steve grabbed both of his arms and his hands were so tight and rough that Clint froze and looked up at him. Steve said something that Clint couldn’t hear and he couldn’t read Steve’s lips, but Clint trusted him, always had and he knew that Steve wouldn’t leave like Loki had left. Even though he had given the shield to Sam and had taken up his mantle as the War Prince, he was still Captain America, and Clint trusted him. He didn’t have much choice, but even if he did, he would still follow Steve to whatever end.

So when Steve reached out a hand, Clint took it, and let Steve lead him away from his home, away from Thanos, and away from his family.

* * *

It took everyone a few days to begin to figure out what had happened. They all grouped up at the Avengers Facility and quietly talked in small groups as everyone slowly came together. Clint huddled by himself, dressed in one of Steve’s sweatshirts and some worn sweatpants he’d found somewhere, and ignored everyone around him. Some SHIELD agent or whoever found a pair of hearing aids for him and he grudgingly put them in, but was immediately overwhelmed by everyone talking about Thanos and Steve and Loki and Tony that he quickly took them out and yanked his hood over his head and cowered beneath it.

He was more equipped than most to deal with sudden new memories but every new one felt like a dagger sliding inside his skull. He suddenly had two memories of meeting Laura—one where she found him, beaten almost to death in a ditch, and took him to a hospital, and he managed to convince her to go on a date with him afterwards, and then the new one where he met her at a bar after a circus show and bought her a drink but there wasn’t anything between them and he ended up sucking some guy’s dick out back behind the bar and then staggering back to wherever he called home. There were so, so many things that were different, and he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around them.

He could have dealt with the loss of his wife. He could have. But his _kids_. Lila, Cooper, Nate. Their loss felt like his heart had been ripped out, like he was hollow inside, and he was so alone and he had never been meant to be alone and it was so hard to breathe—

A strong, metal hand clasped his shoulder and Clint looked up through teary eyes to see Bucky standing in front of him, looking tired and stern and worn out. He squeezed Clint’s shoulder and then released him, bringing up his metal hand—somehow it had changed from the seidr arm to a peculiar metal arm, black threaded with gold—to point at his ear.

Clint grudgingly slid his hearing aids into his ears and switched them on. He winced as he could suddenly hear everyone talking around him and Bucky sighed at him. He looked around the room and then pulled Clint to his feet and out of the main common room and to the elevator, up to the living quarters, and then Bucky took him into Steve’s empty apartment. Bucky pushed him down to the couch and Clint blinked tiredly around the room—he remembered Loki changing the walls to pink and smiled slightly at seeing them—and then took the blanket Bucky handed him, wrapping it around his shoulders. Bucky sat down next to him and let out a long sigh. His hair was short and he scratched his fingers through it before looking at Clint.

“Steve’s gone,” he said finally. “Up and left yesterday. He tell you anything?”

With the loss of Loki, Steve’s barely even registered. So he just shook his head and rubbed his hands over his face. Steve had been acting weird since Thanos had been killed and Loki had vanished, but so had everyone else, and Clint had no energy for anyone other than himself. Steve had been strangely secretive, not talking much to anyone, spending time alone, and Clint had barely seen him. He didn’t want to think that with Loki gone, Steve no longer cared about him, but it was starting to look that way.

He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He tried to spit out an answer but his throat squeezed shut and all he was able to get out was a rasping, grinding sound. Bucky made a sympathetic sound and gently patted Clint’s shoulder.

“Take your time,” Bucky soothed him, voice soft. Clint squeezed his eyes shut, trying to cough out a word, but his mouth refused to cooperate. Clint finally just shook his head and Bucky patted his arm with his hand. “He didn’t say anything? Nothin’ at all?” Clint shook his head again, curling over himself, cradling his arms to his stomach, feeling like everything was going to spill out of him and he had to stop it. He felt fragile and wearisome and couldn’t fucking deal with any of it. “Alright,” Bucky muttered. “Fuck, Barton. I’m gonna get Sam in here.” Bucky pulled his hand back and Clint huddled underneath the blanket while Bucky tapped away on his phone.

It didn’t take very long at all for Sam to show up, and Bucky got up to talk quietly with him. Clint made his very best effort not to hear either of them. All he could think about was that he felt stretched out, thin almost, like he’d been pulled apart and then been left for dead. He couldn’t understand why or where Loki had gone, and now Steve? He didn’t have anything left inside of him to take.

“Hey,” came Sam’s voice, quiet and calm as ever, and Clint looked up a bit to see Sam squatting down in front of him. He tried to smile at him but his face couldn’t seem to contort in such a way. “I talked to Pepper and she said you can use Stark Industries funds to buy your old house back.”

Was he going to have to start worrying about money again? Did he even have money? He had still been an Avenger in this life but that didn’t mean he’d been responsible at all with his money. Clint searched Sam’s face and then slowly nodded. If Pepper wanted to give him money, who was he to argue? Maybe she was trying to pay him back for helping Tony with the Niflheim machine, or maybe for making sure he didn’t die. He tried to say something but his mouth refused to work so he finally dug out his own phone from one of his pockets and typed out, **How’s Tony?**

Sam glanced at it and then sighed out, “Alive. Still in a coma. You want me to tell Pepper to go ahead and buy the house?”

Clint nodded. He couldn’t imagine going back there but when Loki came back, that was where he would go, and Clint had to be waiting for him. **Is Balder still around?**

“No, he went back to Asgard. But Heimdall told me he’ll answer me if I need anything.”

Clint sighed in relief. **I need to make the house an Asgardian embassy again.**

Sam’s mouth thinned and he paused for a moment before saying, “You think he’s gonna come back? Loki?”

Clint’s hands shook so hard at the thought of Loki not coming back to him that he dropped his phone. He knew he was crying, tears falling down his face, but he didn’t move to stop them. Sam swore under his breath and scooped Clint’s phone back up, shoving it into his hands. “Look,” he hissed, “I know you got faith in him. But he’s gone. He left us. So we gotta figure this out without him. You with me?”

Clint didn’t know _how_ to go on without Loki. He wasn’t sure he was able. How could he be without Loki when he had been created to belong to Loki? How could he be a person when Loki was not with him? But slowly, he nodded, and then typed out, **I’m with you.**

Sam Wilson was Captain America. Clint didn’t have anyone else, not really. So he looked from Sam to Bucky and then back again, and Sam gently and kindly took one of his hands. “I’ll get you home,” Sam promised him. Clint nodded, watching Sam as he stood up and then moved past Bucky without looking at him. Bucky let out a tired sigh and joined Clint on the couch again.

“This sucks,” Bucky muttered, picking up the TV remote and flicking the TV on. Clint just nodded and pulled out his hearing aids and then tipped over until his head was in Bucky’s lap. Bucky’s strange metal hand found his hair and pet through it. Clint curled close and tried not to think about how strange it was to have a beating heart again.

* * *

Almost two weeks after Thanos’s death, Sam called a meeting of all the Avengers, which meant that Clint had to get up out of Steve’s bed and shower and change clothes and then drag himself down to the conference room. The same conference room where they had informed the Avengers about Thanos, the same conference room where they’d made plans and schemes and had plotted everything out to bring about the end. Of course, the end that had come was the worst one Clint could have conceived of, but at least it was an end.

He’d merely thought that an end would have brought him less pain, but perhaps he deserved it.

The various Avengers didn’t really seem to know how to treat him—Clint had seen himself in a mirror and he looked beyond terrible—so Clint avoided them, getting himself the biggest cup of coffee he could find and then posting up a couple chairs away from the one he knew Sam was going to sit in and then waiting for the meeting to start. He tried to catch Stephen Strange’s eye but Stephen was avoiding him. Clint couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised. He didn’t know how much Stephen knew about what was going to happen—he clearly knew _something_ , but what?—but clearly Stephen had gotten what he wanted from Clint and was done with him.

Bucky sat down next to him and Clint glanced at him, then pulled out his phone to type, **Where’s Natasha?**

“She and Valkyrie went back to Asgard,” Bucky told him. “They’re the ones who took Thanos’s body there.”

Clint just nodded and stared down into his coffee. Great. Even Natasha couldn’t stay.

He didn’t let himself think about Loki leaving him. He couldn’t, not with all these people around him.

It took Sam a couple more minutes to call the meeting to order. He picked up a tablet and took his seat in the center chair at the table, looking around as the Avengers all sat down. Clint looked at all of them, at their battle-worn faces, at the healed scars and the wounds, and wondered if it had even been worth it. 

Sam looked around at everyone and Clint could see the determination settle across his face. “First we need to figure out is what changed,” Sam began. “I want everyone to email me what they know is different. Start with the big things. We’re all still Avengers, so at least there’s that.” His dark eyes turned to Stephen. “Strange, what have your sorcerers been able to figure out?”

“Well, it’s only been a week,” Stephen hedged, “but our understanding is that when Thor and Frigga entered this timeline, they changed a great deal. Everything they changed reverberated through the timeline and changed other things. Now that the purpose behind Thor’s spell has been defeated and killed, the spell finally broke, and everything reverted back to how it had been originally.”

Sam considered that, typing on his tablet, writing down notes.

“Why would things change back?” Scott Lang asked first. “Why wouldn’t they stay the same?”

It took Stephen a few moments to answer. “Time is...unmalleable. It resists change. We experience it in a way that makes it very difficult to alter. If it is meant to be as one thing, then when given a chance, that is how it will be.”

“That’s not an answer,” Scott mumbled. Half the table nodded in agreement with him and Stephen sighed.

“Things changed because the spell changed them. The spell was created with the purpose to kill Thanos. With that purpose being fulfilled, the spell broke completely, and took the changes with it. Is that any more clear?”

“Why didn’t the timeline revert when Thor was killed?” Bucky asked.

Clint knew the answer to that question. **Because the spell used Loki’s seidr to power it,** he typed out, showing Bucky his phone. Bucky’s eyebrows rose incredulously. **Thor returned it but the previous version of himself still died to power the spell. So the seidr was able to stay stable enough until Thanos died because of that. And the Norn Stones that power it still exist.**

“Huh,” Bucky muttered. “Sounds plausible enough to me.”

Stephen cleared his throat, holding out one scarred hand for his phone. Clint held it out for him and Stephen leaned forward to peer at it. He nodded after reading it and then straightened up again, not meeting Clint's searching gaze as he said, “I don’t know the intricacies of Thor’s spell, but that seems plausible enough to me. But a spell of the magnitude that Thor used would be...it would be unconventional, to say the least. It would not abide by laws that make sense to you or me. Magic that messes with time is extremely unstable and we’re lucky it took this long for it to collapse.” Stephen looked at Sam. “I have all the best minds in Kamar-Taj looking into this.”

“Good,” Sam nodded. “That’s what I was going to ask next.” Then he looked to Carol, who was sitting on his other side. “You said you’re heading out soon?”

Carol nodded. “I will, of course, keep in contact,” she replied, “but I have duties outside this planet.”

“Of course,” Sam said. “We all have our responsibilities. All I can say is thank you for what you’ve done for us so far, and I’ll just ask you for your help whenever you’re nearby.”

“I’ll be happy to give it,” Carol told him. She looked down the table to Clint and then back at Sam. “I’m going to Jotunheim first.”

Sam paused for a second and then nodded, jaw clenching. “Good,” he replied. Then he looked at Rhodes, sitting directly across from him. “You’re our liaison for Stark Industries. What do you have for me?”

Rhodes let out a breath, picking up his own tablet and tapping on it. “Avengers Initiative is still a subsidy of Stark Industries, so we don’t have to go through that whole rigmarole. We’re also still dealing with the government and the United Nations trying to get us to sign a new Accords, but I have lawyers on that. No one will sign anything until all of us agree on something. It’s going to be a lot longer of a process than they want but I’ll keep on top of it.”

“Good,” Sam said firmly. “What else?”

“Tony’s still in a coma. None of the doctors even know how he survived in the first place.”

Clint hesitated before typing out, **The potion Loki gave him arrested his death and then kept him alive.** He held his phone out to Rhodes, who leaned closer to read it, and then his eyebrows rose as he looked back up at Clint. **I also gave him a stone that directed the seidr from the leylines so it wouldn’t kill him.**

Rhodes swallowed, nodded once. “Thank you,” he said, a bit hoarse. He searched Clint’s face and then looked back down at his tablet. Rhodes cleared his throat and then continued, “All of the acquisitions S.I. obtained have stayed the same. So we still own Power Enterprises and everything else. It’s...really fucking difficult to figure out what really happened and what changed. Everything is all...twisted up.”

“I know,” Sam said sympathetically. “We’re all going through that. But we’re making the best of it.” 

Clint didn’t want to make the best of anything. He just wanted things to be back to normal. Everyone went around the table, one at a time, telling Sam what they’d been working on, but Clint faded in and out, not really paying attention to any of it. He’d spent the past week in more of a haze than not, trying to convince himself that staying alive was the right decision when it felt like anything that caused him this much pain had to be wrong. Sometimes it choked him so tightly that he felt like he wasn’t going to be able to take his next breath, and he had to convince himself to fight on, that Loki would come back, that one day he would wake up and he wouldn’t feel the oppressive press of loneliness pushing down on him, but he didn’t know how much longer he could take it.

He felt like he was going to die.

How had he lived like this before? How had he ever been alone? How had he made it to the point where he even had anything to lose?

A hand dropped to his arm and he snatched it out from under them, rubbing away the needles that pierced into his skin, and he opened his eyes to see that the conference room was empty except for Bucky and Sam. Bucky was sitting next to him, looking far too concerned for his own good, and Clint winced, hunching his shoulders forward and ducking his head.

Bucky sighed. “Come on, Barton,” he muttered, pushing to his feet. “You and I are heading out.”

He wanted to say he was sorry, that he couldn’t help it, that every single time he could feel his heart beat and feel his lungs inflate and every single time his stomach roiled in hunger he felt like he should have died when Loki left him. He wanted to say that he didn’t know how he was supposed to live when Loki was gone. He wanted to say he didn’t know who he was any more and he was alive only out of habit.

But he just nodded and stood and didn’t look at Sam’s surely disappointed face as he followed Bucky out of the conference room. They didn’t stop to get clothes or food or anything else, just walked through the Facility and out front, to where a Quinjet was waiting for them. Clint hesitated at seeing it but Bucky waved him forward, the ramp descending as he got close to the jet.

Pepper Potts stood at the top of the ramp, looking down at her Starkphone, but she smiled slightly at the two of them as Clint and Bucky came aboard. She held out a set of keys and Clint just looked at them. Bucky muttered his name under his breath and then swiped them for him.

“As of this morning, your house belongs to you again,” Pepper told him. She paused for a moment and then continued, “Rhodey told me that you’re one of the reasons Tony is even alive, so consider this a gift.” Her mouth opened and closed for a moment and Clint didn’t think he’d ever seen her so unsure of herself. “We filled it with groceries and clothes and furniture. I also have something else for you.” Pepper moved to the side and motioned at a box sitting on one of the jump chairs. Clint nodded to her, barely even registering his appreciation for everything she’d done for him, and moved past her to the box.

He could hear Bucky and Pepper talking but it fell by the wayside when he saw what was inside the box. He didn’t think to ask how Pepper came across any of it, but when he wrapped one hand around the ruby-hilted dagger and brushed his fingers over the flat planes of the Tesseract and clutched his Aesir bow and quiver to his chest, it was the first time since he killed Thanos that he felt like a person again, like he was anywhere close to being alive again.

The loss of seidr felt like a corkscrew, digging into his skin, tightening underneath him until he thought he was going to die from the lack of it. He didn’t know how to be a person anymore, a human being.

“Fucking hell, Barton,” came Bucky’s voice. He sounded tired and annoyed. Strong hands, one flesh and one metal, yanked Clint to his feet and shoved him into a chair and belted him down. He blinked tearily up at Bucky, who gave him a concerned look and then went up to the flight controls.

What if these few things were all he was going to have left of Loki? What if there was never anything else? What if this was all he got?

He didn’t know what to do, with himself or otherwise. He didn’t know how to live on when he was alone.

He held all he had left of Loki close and squeezed his eyes shut and hoped he'd be able to make it long enough to find out.

* * *

He heard Sam and Bucky arguing the first and last time Sam stopped by the house. It felt strange to be home in a place that was no longer home; so much had changed and he kept walking to the empty space of wall where Loki’s rooms had been and standing there and not moving and just hoping that if he waited long enough, Loki would come back to him.

They were out front, yelling at each other in the deep scars in the earth from the battle, and Clint opened the porch door, frowning at them.

“I didn’t even realize it was different this time,” Bucky was snarling, but he looked wounded and hurt. Sam’s arms were crossed over his chest and he glanced at Clint coming outside before shaking his head at Bucky. “I told you once I realized.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Sam told him, quiet and mean. “You still killed him.”

“It wasn’t me,” Bucky said, voice breaking. “I would _never_ , Sam. I didn’t have a choice.”

Sam paused for a moment and then scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know that,” he bit out through gritted teeth. “But I can’t—I can’t fucking _look_ at you right now. You killed him, Buck. I was there. I saw it.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but Clint watched his face as his heart broke. He opened his mouth, wanted to say something, but what? He didn’t even know what they were talking about. So, instead, he just went down the porch stairs and looked between the two of them. Bucky shook his head and just pushed past Clint and went into the house. Sam took a moment to himself and then turned to look at Clint, brows drawn together and his mouth pinched and twisted.

Clint pulled out his phone and typed, **I need you to ask Heimdall some questions for me.** He held it out to Sam, who peered at it and then nodded. **I need to know where my brother is. Barney. And ask him what happened to Jacques Dusquense.**

Sam frowned at him but nodded, turning away to look up at the sky. “Heimdall!” he called out. “I have questions for you.”

It took a minute for a raven to wing down from the sky, and the bird did a slow circle over the two of them before landing on Sam’s outstretched arm. The bird opened its mouth and Heimdall’s voice came out, “Barney Barton still resides upon Asgard. He is still a member of the crown’s army and has not yet regained his honor. Jacques Dusquense is dead.”

Clint wilted in relief. He reached out a hand and the raven tilted it’s head at him and then ruffled its wings and hopped over to his hand, looking inquisitively up at him. There was seidr trailing off the bird that made his skin tingle and his heart ache. _Where is he?_ he wanted to ask. _Is he alive? Do you know? Can you even see him?_

But instead, he stayed mute, and the raven waited for a few more moments before surging back up to the sky, black wings catching the light of the sun as it winged back into the clouds.

“How has your brother not regained his honor?” Sam asked him, looking back at Clint. “He fought with us against Thanos.”

Clint sighed and typed out, **Regaining honor means dying. He has to die in service to the throne and then he will be honorable again.**

“Oh. _Oh._ Does he know that?”

 **I don’t think he did at first, but he has to by now.** Clint shook his head. He didn’t much like thinking about Barney, in fact. It had been Loki’s decision that Barney go into service to Asgard, and at the time, it had seemed like the right decision, it had made sense, but everything was so clouded and twisted up and he was so goddamn tired. _So_ tired. So tired and lonely and done with it all. So he just gave Sam a consolatory pat on the back and went back inside the house. The Quinjet took off a few minutes later and Clint finished making coffee in the kitchen and then brought two mugs into the living room, where Bucky was sitting in the dark, staring at his hands.

Clint put one of the mugs on the low table in front of Bucky and didn’t look at the strange empty space where Loki’s massive, opulent armchair had once been. Or hadn’t been? Instead he sat down next to Bucky and wrapped both of his hands around the mug and stared down into it. Bucky sighed and then whispered, “I killed him.”

Clint sent him a questioning look.

“Sam’s friend. Riley. HYDRA...they sent me after him. Twisted me up and set me loose in the middle of Afghanistan and gave me an RPG and told me my mission was to kill one of the men in the sky. It was just luck of the draw that I killed him and not Sam. He was just the first one I saw.”

Clint reached out and took Bucky’s left hand in his. Bucky hesitated for a moment and then metal fingers tightened down around Clint’s hand.

“I didn’t even remember until now. All these memories…” Bucky shook his head, rubbed his free hand over his face. “Everything is all messed up in my head. I thought I had a handle on it and now with the change, everything is so much worse. Nothing makes sense anymore. I don’t...I thought I kinda had it all figured out.” His shoulders hitched. “I thought he was gonna propose. I didn’t know...I...I don’t know what to _do._ ”

Clint set down his coffee mug and Bucky turned to him, the two of them curling together, leaning up against each other on the couch, Bucky silently crying and Clint stared up at the ceiling, wondering if he was ever going to feel anything other than loss and loneliness ever again. He didn’t think any of them knew what to do anymore.

The longer Loki was gone, the less it hurt for someone else to touch him. He didn’t know what to do about that, if there was even anything to be done, but the thought made him want to die.

* * *

Neither of them had much to contribute to the cause of rebuilding the world and figuring everything out after Thanos’s death and the change. Clint existed in a torpor, listing lazily as the world changed around him, wandering around his unfamiliar home in a haze, lost in thought and memory and pain. Bucky tried to help, but Sam continued to have difficulty talking to him, which meant he communicated mostly with Clint, who rarely even remembered to check his phone, much less actually respond to texts and emails. 

Sometimes Clint remembered he had been the one to kill Thanos, in the end, and sometimes he wondered if he should throw a party for himself or if there should’ve been a celebration, but he couldn’t dredge up the energy to care. Bucky dedicated himself to redoing all of the accessibility adaptations that had disappeared with the change—the lights flashed when someone rang the doorbell or when the phone rang, and he managed to rig up an intercom system that Clint could ring if he needed to talk to him but couldn’t find him or get his attention. He also changed out all of the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors to have flashing lights in addition to the siren, along with wiring them to vibration pads that went under a mattress or near the couch where he liked to sit. Bucky got a bulk box of small notebooks and pens and left them all over the house so Clint never had to think about making sure he had one on him or remember his phone in case he needed to say something.

Clint made a habit of leaving post-it notes all over the house for Bucky—telling him what he was doing, what he was thinking, if the house needed anything—and a few weeks in or a month, Clint was changing the sheets in Bucky’s room and jostled the nightstand and the drawer opened, revealing that Bucky had kept all the notes Clint had left for him.

Clint smiled at the sight and carried Bucky’s old sheets out of his bedroom. He paused for a moment outside the closed door that led to the room Lila and Cooper’s room, and then the door next to it that led to Nate’s nursery. They’d planned to keep Nate in there for a few years and then switch Nate and Lila and give her her own room. But now none of that would happen. Ever. Across the hall was the closed door to the master bedroom. Clint’s breath caught in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Everything had changed so quickly and he hated every single minute of it. He had been _happy_. What had he done in life to deserve everything changing? Hadn’t he earned happiness? He had done everything right, he had been where he belonged, he had been _good._

Cool metal fingers caught his arm and Clint turned to bury his face in Bucky’s chest, dropping the pile of sheets and blankets to the floor. Bucky held him close and let Clint cry himself out, grief spearing him open, welling up inside of him until he couldn’t bear it any longer, sobbing for the loss of his innocent children and Laura and the life he had spent decades building. All he had wanted was for them to be safe and alive and it had been his own hand that had taken them from him. He had wanted Thanos’s death as much as Loki had but he simultaneously never regretted a single arrow as much as he did that final one.

It took a few minutes for Clint to stop heaving with sobs and he shuddered against Bucky’s chest. _I’m sorry_ , he wanted to say. _I suffer and I suffer and there is no end in sight._

Bucky held him for as long as he needed and when Clint finally pulled back, picking up the sheets and wiping his face with them. He peeked up at Bucky’s face and winced at seeing the sympathetic look there. Bucky gently took the sheets and picked up the blankets and awkwardly patted Clint’s arm and then took them downstairs to the laundry room. Clint took in a deep, trembling breath and then went to the master bedroom door, carefully easing it open.

The room was empty. Empty of furniture, empty of memories, empty of the life Clint had lived and built there. He had dedicated his life to Loki and had no intention of ever changing that, but he had no less dedicated his life to his family. He had worked so hard and for so long to make sure they were safe and happy and had given them everything he could, only to have it all taken from him. 

He slumped to the floor, staring at the empty room, the bare floor, the place where their bed had once stood, where he had made so many memories and made his _family_ , and he buried his face in his hands, his breath heaving in his chest. Not only had Loki left him but he had been the one to kill Thanos and break the spell and he had taken his own family from himself.

Bucky hauled him to his feet and dragged him downstairs, pushing him to the kitchen table. Bucky bustled around and then brought him a cold glass of water, glaring at him until he drank all of it. Then Bucky pushed his hearing aids at him until Clint let out a tired sigh and slid them into his ears.

“When was the last time you ate?” Bucky asked him. Clint shrugged. “Fine. I’m going to make lunch.” Clint nodded and Bucky turned away from him but then paused. Then he turned back to look at Clint and his flesh hand wrapped around his metal forearm. “I get it, alright? I get not having any control over what you’ve done and what’s happened to you. But you need to deal with it.”

Clint nodded, eyes trailing over Bucky’s still unfamiliar metal arm. He’d been there for the nightmares and panic attacks and everything else. He’d treated the cuts on Bucky’s back from him trying to claw the arm off, sat with him in the dark while Bucky sobbed into his lap. He felt like they’d been there for each other through the past month, but Bucky, as always, had stepped up and supported Clint and hadn’t expected anything in return. If he wanted to take care of himself, he needed to help Bucky. If Bucky could continue standing up after what he had experienced and all he had gone through, Clint could surely do the same. He might have been muddled and mixed up and so, so lost and alone, but he still had thousands of years of memories to draw upon, even though they felt far from him, as if a curtain had been drawn in his mind between who he was now and who he had been.

So he stood up and caught one of Bucky’s hands in his. Bucky blinked at him and smiled slightly at whatever he saw on Clint’s face. Clint looked at him for a moment, at Bucky’s familiar, dear face, and then turned back to pick up the pad of paper and the pen Bucky had left for him on the kitchen table.

 **I’m sorry,** he wrote in a shaky hand. Loki had managed to fix some of the nerve damage he’d caused from Thor’s curse, but it had gotten worse again once Loki had disappeared. **I’m lost. I don’t know what to do.**

“I’ll help you,” Bucky promised him, “but you gotta _let_ me, man. You’re stuck in your head over all this shit.”

Clint nodded. He didn’t know how to be anywhere else, but he’d try. Part of him wanted to ask Pepper if she could sell the house and he and Bucky could find somewhere else, but if Loki returned, he’d come back to the house, and Clint would wait for him until the day he died if he had to. He reached out and squeezed Bucky’s metal hand and then sat back down, listening as Bucky moved around the kitchen. He fiddled with the papers and thought about all the weapons he’d stockpiled in the barn. He was going to have to start that up again.

He pulled out his phone and drafted an email to Pepper Potts about how she’d found his Aesir bow and quiver and the Tesseract—she’d given it all to him but he hadn’t asked—and then about getting more weapons for his house. He sent the email right as Bucky put a bowl of pasta in front of him, and Clint smiled up at him as Bucky sat next to him. Bucky patted his leg and then motioned for him to eat. Clint obliged, tucking in, and Bucky watched him eat.

Later, they went for a walk outside, and Clint didn’t say anything as Bucky took his hand. Clint promised himself that he’d work on himself and help Bucky as much as he could. Loneliness still pressed in on him like a physical weight on his chest, and he was still carved open, barely held together by whatever skin he had left, and if he had to, he’d stay alive for Bucky, and for the hope in his heart, however faint it felt, that Loki would come back.

* * *

Then, of course, a couple months later, Loki.

It was no more than a moment of him, just the familiar feeling of his seidr on the air, gently coating the house, and Clint panicked, bursting outside, Loki’s name on his lips, the first word this new version of him had spoken in months if not years, and all he saw was a single, solitary moment of his god standing before him again before Loki looked up to see him and vanished again. _Left him_ again.

He dug his hands into the dirt where Loki had stood and when Bucky found him and shoved him into the shower to clean him off, Clint dug the blade out of the razor he used to shave and cut his arms down to the bone.

He would rather die. If Loki was not with him, if Loki continued to leave him, if he was _alone_ , if he had to be Clint-without-Loki, he would rather die.

Taking his own life was better than asking Bucky to do it.

When he woke up in Bucky’s bed the next morning, he methodically pulled the stitches out of his arms and reopened the wounds and waited for death.

Bucky refused to give it to him. For the first time, Clint hated him. Loki had come back and chosen to leave him and what reason beyond that did Clint have to live? If Loki was not in his life, then he needed to have no life at all. There was no life without Loki, no reason for his heart to continue to beat, no reason for his lungs to hold breath.

Bucky found him, because Bucky would always find him. Bucky patiently sewed him back up and cleaned him up and made it very, very clear that he was not going to die, no matter what or how he tried. He forced Clint out of the house in the morning and he ate breakfast on the porch and Bucky took him for a walk and even as much as he wanted to lay down and die, Bucky didn’t give him time to think about it. Bucky removed every possible weapon from the house and carefully and gently shaved Clint’s face for him every few days and was the only reason Clint managed to stay in any state resembling alive.

He found himself existing in a space that felt half real and half lost. As if everything was hazy and separated and lost to him. He would lose himself in a haze and come back to find himself trying to claw into the wall where Loki’s rooms had been, or digging into the dirt where Loki had been standing, or curling around the Tesseract and trying with all his heart to activate it and take him away, to wherever Loki had gone, or to the surface of a sun so he could finally rest.

But Bucky always found him. He didn’t know if Bucky eventually stopped talking or if Clint just stopped hearing completely and lost his hearing aids, but they existed in silence. Clint stopped crying and tried to fade away. He stopped eating unless Bucky made him, stopped taking care of himself, and he knew he was becoming too much, too much work and hardship for his friend, but he couldn’t help it. There was no other way for him to exist. All he wanted was to die; if he could not have his family, not have Loki, not have Steve, then what point was there to exist?

As he was alone, and he was not made to be alone, then why live at all?

What was the point of living if he did not have Loki?

He was abandoned on Midgard by those who had promised to care for him, and all he had left in the world was Bucky, who had his own demons to fight. They both knew there was an expiration date on whatever they had together at the house. Eventually, something was going to break, or Clint was going to successfully kill himself, or someone or something was going to come for them. Rhodes and Sam had been keeping the whole new Accords thing at bay, and Clint hadn’t gotten any updates on Dr. Doom being up to anything, but eventually, something was going to happen.

It took three more months for Loki to return. Three long, long months. Three months of every breath being painful and every heartbeat hurting and every single moment feeling like loneliness was a wave about to crash over him and take him down to the deep and drown him.

Loki appeared in the same spot as before, in the lawn in front of the house, and Clint ran to him, because he could do nothing else. He was as unable to resist Loki as he was unable to resist the instinct to breathe. He could no more resist Loki than he could resist the urge to die. He slammed into Loki and shuddered against him and sobbed into his chest as strong, familiar arms wrapped around him. 

_You came back to me,_ he wanted to say, but could not. _I was so alone and it hurt it hurt it hurt and I don’t know what to do._ He tried to reach out to him but his mind met only darkness and Clint recoiled away from it, away from the emptiness, away from the yawning depths of the void. He felt Loki’s skin against his own for the first time in six months and he could feel his very skin cease to ache, cease to hurt, as his soul began to sing, as Loki’s fingers counted his vertebrae and then cupped his jaw and looked over his face.

“What has been done to you?” Loki asked him, and his voice was all Clint had ever wanted to hear. “Did someone do this to you?”

 _I did this,_ was all he wanted to say, but could not. _I did all of it._ He merely shook his head and let his eyes fall shut, sagging against Loki, knowing his god would catch him. He had been unsure of so many things in the past few months, so scared of the unfamiliar world around him, but he knew that. He knew that Loki would keep him standing when he did not have the strength, would keep him alive when all he wished was to die. He leaned his head against Loki’s chest and felt the slow, thunderous drum of his heart, and he was finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the last pre-written work i have for this series. i've kind of lost motivation to write for this series so i'm not sure when i'll have the next part up, but i am working on it. if you enjoyed, please tell me what you enjoyed about it; if you didn't like it, please tell me what you didn't like about it. thanks for reading!
> 
> follow me:
> 
> twitter: @whenhedied  
> tumblr: @deluxemycroft


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